The Audiffred Building

The Audiffred Building was erected in 1889 by Hippolite Audiffred, a native of France who ended up in San Francisco via Mexico. He had desired a building that would remind him of Paris. Many structures survived the 1906 earthquake in good condition—especially those designed by architects, who were aware of the city's seismic heritage from damaging quakes in 1865 and 1868—but the subsequent fires wiped them out. The problem was the firefighters, who were frantically dynamiting buildings to create firebreaks. A barkeep in this building offered the crews two quarts of whiskey apiece and a hose-cart full of wine for the structure to be spared. Today only this and the Ferry Building survive from the pre-quake times on the waterfront.